Yesterday's confession by a West Coast skinhead that he helped kill a Korean tourist in 2003 has revived memories of the murder of a gay man in 1999. Shannon Flewellen has admitted in the Christchurch High Court that he had helped choke backpacker Jae Hyeon Kim and stomped on his neck until he died. Flewellen's companion in that crime, white supremacist Hayden McKenzie, is already in jail for his part in the backpacker's death and also for killing gay man James 'Janis' Bambrough in 1999. Bambrough, described as a cross-dresser who lived a transient lifestyle, went missing after a party in Westport in late 1999. His body was not found until September 2004. He had been choked and drowned in the Buller River. Bambrough's and McKenzie's lives and the events which led up to the gay man's death are detailed in the Weekend Press feature archived at the Fight Dem Back website linked below.
Credit: GayNZ.com Daily News staff
First published: Thursday, 1st April 2010 - 8:09pm